Sanvi's first trip

Recently our daughter Sanvi went for a school trip, and there are many things that happened to be memorable and I want to share stories around it.

Since this was a first alone trip for Sanvi, naturally it was quite exciting as well as a leap of faith to an unknown journey. When our kids start growing, we do not realise that they need a different space and perspective, parents always see them from the glass of their own time and that’s a generation gap. We must understand that kids will grow with different velocity, information exchange, humour, art, food, the meaning of life, everything changes in 20-30 years and their best possible journey could be very very different.

Sanvi has never been to any place alone before this, every time one of parents or maybe both has accompanied her, but this time she is out of home for 3 nights and 4 days, school planned a trip to Gokarna. Accidentally I had a trip to Gokarna with my friends just a couple of weeks before and I found it’s lovely, beautiful place to meet peace, so Sanvi was super excited to be there, because I visited there, irrespective of that She just wanted to go. One of the strange parts we got to know that from her school only 11 kids opted to go, and all 11 were girls. This was quite strange for us because we thought, lots of kids will opt to go and there will definitely be a good balance of boys and girls. But it seems Indian’s stereotype parents are not so open to spend money for a trip, they will throw money behind tuition and academics like anything, but do not realise that learning lessons through a trip is much more intuitive than a book.

She was so excited to go on a trip that she packed her bag 3 days before only. Her bag packing skills is great, she can organise stuff, she packed her cloths day wise and put them in a carry bag, put the toothbrush and other regular using stuff in a different packet, and by looking at her bag, I was betting that even Rupa can not do such a neat packing, I am not sure how kids get such skills even if they are doing it first time.

29th Jan morning 11:30, they all started from Bangalore in a nice Bus, there were 2 schools VIBGYOR Hoaramavu and Marathalli branch and went together for the trip. Shikha mam was the in-charge for Horamavu Branch (Yes, Sanvi goes to Horamavu branch). She created a WhatsApp group to keep updated about the kids to their parents. I too joined the group. It takes around 12 hours to reach Gokarna from Bangalore including stopping for food and other breaks. Shikha mam kept sending updates on what they are having in lunch, evening snacks and dinner. This was another strange thing that Sanvi was eating pretty much anything outside, she only does lots of drama at Home. She was happy ..and so we were. In the evening of 29th when I came back from office, the Home was silent, everyone was missing Sanvi, as she is a chirping bird, and we were missing her a lot. I am sure she must be missing us too but she was heading a journey of excitement, a factor of unknown but she is brave and courageous to envelope the unknown and we surely wanted her to grow on this path of unknown. We wanted her to learn to live alone, do things by herself, discover new things, all we wanted was she should come back soon.

They reached the night of 29th Jan, they reached quite late night and boarded in a beautiful resort, and the next day they had been to a few places and seems all the kids were having lots of fun and pretty good time. And they stayed there for 2 days and went to many beaches, some Fort, one cave and a few temples including Murudeshwar, most importantly they were not with parents and they were enjoying. Before coming Shikha mam took them for a small shopping also, and Sanvi did some shopping for all of us. She brought some stuff for all of us, for Me, Rupa and for her Dadi Maa as well, and we were quite surprised how carefully she thought about all of us and got some small small things for us.

When I went to receive her, she was sounding different, she was sounding mature, when we came home, she was talking quite maturely and gave all those things to us and we felt very happy that she has grown just in 3 days and I was so grateful to see her growth.

She didn’t complain about anything, food, places, people, friends, nothing, she was very happy and grateful about the journey, accepted all of it and enjoyed it entirely. How kids grow is all depends on how we allow them to grow. It’s quite possible that they will have their own velocity of growth but at certain time, I think they take the jump and we should allow them to jump, worst case they will break the leg, but not allowing may cripple them , or least will lose the fast growth potential and they will carry that burden their whole life.

Study is one form of education and that contributes to a certain percentage of learning in life only, it’s surely not 100%, I believe it’s hardly 50%, the remaining 50%  of learning happens through experience, going places, meeting new people, trying out new things, may be sports, may be art, may be something which is totally unconventional also, but realising their potential energy that can flow in which direction is the most important and that will leads to find the purpose and satisfaction of their life, and as a parents we believe that is only what matters.

We were so happy and so emotional about when she went because we realised that she has grown, which also means she will move to new places, she will not like to be much at home soon, and we are surely not gonna stop her in learning through experiences. And that’s life, All we can do it observe and take the joy in journey, rejoice it. The journey of this life along with Sanvi is quite adventurous and we are so grateful about it.

Thanks a lot Sanvi for being with us, we love you